


reset

by tigriswolf



Series: comment_fic drabbles [257]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Dysfunctional Family, Family Secrets, Gen, Growing Up, Magic, Superpowers, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-23
Updated: 2015-05-23
Packaged: 2018-03-31 21:12:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3993067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigriswolf/pseuds/tigriswolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's known the words longer than she's known her name, longer than she knew her mother's voice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	reset

**Author's Note:**

> Title: reset  
> Original, gen, 495 words  
> any, any, a literal reset button

Throughout her life, skinned knees and barbie dolls, chasing after her big brothers and being ignored or adored in equal measure, watching Mama and Daddy fight and finally Daddy walk out, taking Freddie the oldest with him -- it's always there in the back of her mind. She knows not to talk about it without knowing why. Knows to wait. 

Through junior high, through high school, through college, through grad school, deciding on mechanical engineering because it makes sense in a way nothing else does, despite what everyone says about girls and math. 

She never tells anyone. Dates Marco and then Angelica, has a fling with Freddie's best friend Vincent, nearly marries Yvette. Daddy tries to make nice and she ignores him, Mama cries that she's got lung cancer. 

It's there in the back of her mind, always. Through the pregnancy scare, through losing a promotion to a coworker with a dick even though he's not half as smart as her. Through Mama going downhill so fast, through Tommy's car wreck.

She waits. 

Mama dies. At the funeral, she trails her fingers along Mama's cheek, tears on her face, Freddie and Tommy sobbing in each others arms. Freddie's wife is taking care of the children and Tommy will need a leg brace for the rest of his life. 

She waits. 

This time, the wreck kills Tommy, and almost his pregnant girlfriend, too. Freddie sobs in his wife's arms while the girlfriend sobs in hers. 

She waits, and she waits. 

So many little things to fix, so many big things. Who is she to decide what is the most important? 

Sometimes, she thinks she's crazy. Sometimes, she thinks it's a test from God (except, she doesn't believe in any higher power). 

When the virus breaks out, it doesn't make the news, not at first. She's taken a sabbatical from work because she's tired of dealing with dicks who think she's stupid because she doesn't have one. Freddie's oldest has had his first brush with the law. Tommy's girlfriend has decided she doesn't want to be a mom, so Freddie and his wife took their niece in. 

The virus spreads. Dozens, hundreds, thousands die. Then they wake up and it is... horrifying.

Finally, she knows what she's been waiting for. 

She doesn't tell Freddie goodbye, or the kids. Instead she traces the virus back to its source as far as she can, and she waits until she absolutely can't anymore, and then she closes her eyes. 

She's known the words longer than she's known her name, longer than she knew her mother's voice. She's known the words since she was barely a glimmer. 

She whispers them as the afflicted surround her, and she opens her eyes to darkness, to weightlessness, to warmth. 

The words are there, nestling in the back of a mind that has barely formed. She knows she will not be able to use them again.

She also knows that any child she has might.


End file.
